MORTSEL, Belgium, April 12, 2001 - Agfa-Gevaert N.V. announced today that Agfa Corporation, its US subsidiary, has acquired privately-held Talk Technology, Inc. of Bensalem, Pennsylvania, US. Talk Technology is North America's leading supplier of voice-enabled clinical workflow and reporting solutions for healthcare, with over 2,500 users at more than 200 healthcare facilities in the US.
This acquisition is part of Agfa's strategy to provide customers with image and information management solutions that seamlessly and smoothly manage patient data, from initial creation through to final archiving. It also underscores Agfa's commitment to help customers implement solutions that enable them to become more efficient, leading to enhanced patient care and better utilization of resources.
Talk Technology's products, developed for the specialty areas of radiology, mammography, pathology and emergency medicine, are designed to increase efficiencies by automating the medical reporting process. Through its TalkStationTM family of products, Talk Technology offers speech recognition, digital dictation and transcription, enhanced workflow support, custom reporting, report tracking and retrieval, and advanced report distribution. Agfa believes that voice-recognition technology and related workflow solutions will form the basis of the results-generation systems of the future.
"With this acquisition, we're achieving two important goals," said John Glass, Managing Director, Medical Imaging, Agfa-Gevaert N.V. "First, by building voice recognition capabilities right into the Agfa product portfolio, we'll be able to offer our customers one of the most comprehensive -and integrated- image and information management solutions on the market today. Second, the acquisition of Talk Technology puts Agfa in a leading position in brand-new markets. This acquisition is an important part of our strategy to diversify the clinical areas we serve."